Chip & Signature

We spend a lot of time at Circuits And Cable Knit speculating on the future of fashion, wearables, and retail tech. What might be possible, what might catch on, and what won’t we be able to live without. There is one thing that is not up for discussion through: the way we pay for things will change. And today is the day that the change begins. Starting October 1st, retailers are now liable for any fraud that is the result of a magnetically swiped charge card.

You might have noticed over the past year that all of your credit cards have been replaced with a version featuring a chip on the front left side. This is called an EMV chip (an acronym of it’s creators Europay, MasterCard and Visa) and retailers will now be asking you to use it instead of simply running your card through the magnetic reader. EMV chips have been common place for decades on charge cards around the globe but not in the US. Banks have been hesitant to push users toward the tech because, while it is more secure than our current magnetic swipe system, it is more complex and cumbersome and requires new payment terminals. But with the US ranking as one of the leading country of credit card fraud, banks are now willing to force the change.

There are two implementations of how an EMV equipped card can be used.